NASA Astronauts Announce Second Letter to NASA at Heartland Conference

This will be a top sticky post for a day or two, new stories will appear below this one.

At the Heartland Conference in Chicago this morning, four of the forty-nine signers of the March letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden (discussed at WUWT here, here, and here) appeared to discuss their reasons for signing that letter and to announce a second letter responding to NASA’s response.

The text of that letter is reproduced below:

May 11, 2012

The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr. NASA Administrator

NASA Headquarters

Washington, D.C. 20546-0001

Dear Charlie:

In our letter of March 28, 2012, we, the undersigned, respectfully requested that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites.

On April 11th, Dr. Waleed Abdalati responded, holding that: “As an agency, NASA does not draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings.”

Eight days later, at a senate hearing, Dr. Abdalati, did just that, concluding that Sea-Level rise within the next 87 years projects within a range of 0.2 meters to 2 meters, with lower ranges less likely while “the highest values are based on warmest of the temperature scenarios commonly considered for the remainder of the 21st century.” Abdalati added: “The consequences of a 1 meter rise in sea level by the end of this century would be very significant in terms of human well-being and economics, and potentially global socio-political stability.”

The range and imprecision of this conclusion is astounding!

“Commonly considered?” Is this science by poll? If hard data points to a provable rise, it should be stated with its probability. Can you imagine one of your predecessors, Dr. Thomas Paine, declaring, “Our Apollo 11 Lunar Lander’s target is the Sea of Tranquility, but we may make final descent within a range that includes Crater Clavius”?

We are not trying to stifle discourse, but undisciplined commentary, lacking in precision, is wholly inappropriate when NASA’s name and reputation is attached.

This letter should end the discussion, as a protracted discourse on this topic is not in NASA’s interest, but a commitment from you to equal or exceed the agency’s reputation for careful reliance upon rigorous science and accurate data most certainly is!

Join us, please, in encouraging your colleagues to achieve the level of excellence the world has come to expect from America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration!

Waiting to do so is not an option!

[signed 41]

PS Waiting to send was not an option either –we have fewer signatures than the first, as not everyone was reachable and only one opted out.

Astounding indeed. Waleed Abdalati seems very much the politico-administrator, issuing such a statement on a par with Pachauri’s Himalaya Glacier Melt remark. Then, following it with a clearly geopolitical statement…which basically stirs up the sea of tranquility. Jim Hansen pulling strings, no doubt.

You can tell the state of NASA when they have to outsource supporting the International Space Station.
Perhaps they ought to spend some of that “Climate Investigation” cash on Space exploration again.
The money wasted world wide on this Climate farce must be truly astounding.

In Australia, this needs to be a campaign ad for Abbot, and in the US it needs to be in a campaign ad for Romney.

Seriously – because those are the only places it will ever make a difference. The warmists are far past listening to anything approaching reason or common sense. They cannot be persuaded or convinced of the folly of their actions in any way; they can only be defeated. And even after they’re defeated, they’ll whine about it for the rest of their lives.

While it’s always good to “look toward the future” I’m constantly amazed at how folks seem to ignore how unknowable that future actually is. If we were being offered two choices, otherwise equal, and one of them definitely forecast a 1 meter rise in 87 years while the other forecast a zero rise, then yes, it would seem to make good sense to opt for the zero path (I say “seem to” since it’s possible that further studies might somehow conclude that a 1m rise could actually be GOOD for some reason!)

But, look back over the last 87 years and the number and magnitude of changes that have impacted humanity and the environment and the interaction between the two and how difficult it would have been to make any sensible predictions about it all 87 years ago. Venereal disease was unstoppable, our cities were being smothered by industrial smoke, we’d fought the last “Great War” that would ever exist, the scourge of Demon Rum was over, computers beyond adding machines didn’t exist, rail transit was clearly the future (although blimps looked promising), etc.

Jump 50 years into the future, to just 37 years ago, and half as many cars in the US were causing double the pollution (or more… haven’t really researched the figures on that), nuclear holocaust seemed virtually inevitable, the universities would forever be bastions of free love and free drugging, Bill Gates (?) was saying that he doubted there’d ever be more than a few hundred or so folks who’d have any use for something like a “personal computer” at home, AIDS didn’t exist, etc. etc.

My main point in the above is simply to point out that we literally have really no idea at all what’s in store as far as technological advances or problems or solutions will be facing us 87 years down the line. Does it make sense not to wantonly proceed on courses that produce results that look disastrous while just “hoping” that something will pop up to save us? Yes. But does it make sense to base predictions on assumptions that “all else will remain the same”? No.

There’s a balance to be struck, and sometimes I think that in our confidence in predicting the future and our desire to feel that we actually know the path ahead that we forget that.

Wow, what an impressive list of hundreds of years of experience of working at the cutting edge of science and technology. I doubt that these people are political ‘players’ – they would have been too busy doing their jobs.

Dear Dr. Abdalati,
Sea level rise for the past couple of decades has averaged a little over 3 mm per year. For your predicted rise of 2 meters over the next 87 years to occur, sea level rise would have to increase to roughly 23 mm per year. When do you expect sea levels to start rising seven times faster than they have been for decades?

It’s amazing that predictions such as this are actually made in public when they have so little basis in any kind of reality.

while the positive reputation once held by ‘scientists’ has been destroyed by the fakers, the astronauts still retain respect, if not heroic status.
there’s nobody else left with that kind of prestige.
but it’s too late, imo. on the one day of the year when nasa isn’t doing moslem outreach, it’s tracking santa claus. oh, how they squandered everything that had been built. it was not accidental or innocent. they’ve redefined themselves and i know better than to doubt what they are.
what they are can not be changed. i must be eliminated.

At the Heartland Conference in Chicago this morning, four of the forty-nine signers of the March letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden appeared to discuss their reasons for signing that letter and to announce a second letter responding to NASA’s response.

Can you reprint NASA’s response here? Or, can someone familiar with it at least provide us with a link? I have no idea what these former NASA employees are actually responding to.

The Crumbling Consensus
That never was. Only 24% of meteorologists, 19% of Republicans (Pew poll) believe in mann-made global warming. The true guard of NASA disbelieves the hoax, while the effete “new morality” Muslim outreach branch of NASA pushes the agw propaganda.
Now also, possibly an important development, though if anyone has better info on it (?), apparently the Russian Academy of Sciences has announced: “Global warming is coming to an end: In the coming years the temperature over the entire planet will fall … … The process of a general temperature decrease has already begun, according to the research. After having peaked in 2005 … According to the scientists, global temperatures will fall another 0.15°C by 2015, which corresponds to the climate of the early 1980s.” Source:

Phil C, this is what they are responding to (taken from one of the links above):
We support open scientific inquiry and discussion,” NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said in a statement provided to The Daily Caller.

“If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse,” Abdalati said.

He added: “NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate.”

These gentlemen have it “RIGHT” They have the RIGHT STUFF. Here is why:There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist. This experiment which has been peer reviewed by Ph.D physicists . Ph.D. Chemical engineers and others. The experiment is found on the web-site http:// http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com click on the blog tab. It is titled “The Experiment that failed which can save the world trillion-Proving the greenhouse gas effect does not exist

ALAN SIDDONS HEADLINE STORY JOHN O’SULLIVAN NASA
NASA in Shock New Controversy: Two Global Warming Reasons Why by John O’Sullivan, guest post at Climate Realists

NASA covered up for forty years proof that the greenhouse gas theory was bogus. But even worse, did the U.S. space agency fudge its numbers on Earth’s energy budget to cover up the facts?

As per my article this week, forty years ago the space agency, NASA, proved there was no such thing as a greenhouse gas effect because the ‘blackbody’ numbers supporting the theory didn’t add up in a 3-dimensional universe:

“During lunar day, the lunar regolith absorbs the radiation from the sun and transports it inward and is stored in a layer approximately 50cm thick….in contrast with a precipitous drop in temperature if it was a simple black body, the regolith then proceeds to transport the stored heat back onto the surface, thus warming it up significantly over the black body approximation…”

Thus, the ‘blackbody approximations’ were proven to be as useful as a chocolate space helmet; the guesswork of using the Stefan-Boltzmann equations underpinning the man-made global warming theory was long ago debunked. If NASA had made known that Stefan-Boltzmann’s numbers were an irrelevant red-herring then the taxpayers of the world would have been spared the $50 billion wasted on global warming research; because it would have removed the only credible scientific basis to support the theory that human emissions of carbon dioxide changed Earth’s climate.

But, until May 24, 2010 these facts remained swept under the carpet. For the Apollo missions NASA had successfully devised new calculations to safely put astronauts on the Moon-based on actual measured temperatures of the lunar surface. But no one appears to have told government climatologists who, to this day, insist their junk science is ‘settled’ based on their bogus ‘blackbody’ guesswork.
NASA’s Confusion over Earth’s Energy Budget

But it gets worse: compounding such disarray, NASA, now apparently acting more like a politicized mouthpiece for a socialist one world government, cannot even provide consistent numbers on Earth’s actual energy budget.

Thanks to further discussion with scientist, Alan Siddons, a co-author of the paper, ‘A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon,’ it appears I inadvertently stumbled on a NASA graph that shows the U.S. space agency is unable to tally up the numbers on the supposed greenhouse gas “backradiation.” Why would this be?

In its graphic representation of the energy budget of the Earth the agency has conspicuously contradicted itself in its depiction of back-radiation based on its various graphs on Earth’s radiation budget.

As Siddons sagely advised me, “This opens the question as to WHICH budget NASA actually endorses, because the one you show is consistent with physics: 70 units of sunlight go in, 70 units of infrared go out, and there’s no back-flow of some ridiculous other magnitude. Interesting.”

Climate Sceptic Scientists’ Growing Confidence
Thanks to Siddons and his co-authors of ‘A Greenhouse Effect on the Moon,’ the world now has scientific evidence to show the greenhouse gas theory (GHG) was junk all along.

As the truth now spreads, an increasing number of scientists refute the greenhouse gas theory, many have been prompted by the shocking revelations since the Climategate scandal. The public have also grown more aware of how a clique of government climatologists were deliberately ‘hiding the decline’ in the reliability of their proxy temperature data all along.

But NASA’s lunar temperature readings prove that behind that smoke was real fire. Some experts now boldly go so far as to say the entire global warming theory contravenes the established laws of physics.
How NASA responds to these astonishing revelations may well tell us how politicized the American space agency really is.

I have sent a letter to me representative in Congress stating that this issue (Hanson and his group of supporters at NASA) should be investigated by Congress. I believe that this is the appropriate thing to do and suggest that all others send their Representatives a similar note including the test of the letter and reference to the WUWT site or other appropriate citations.

Perhaps we can get Congress to finally respond to this political use of a Government position of trust. There are many people in multiple government agencies that are misusing their position and influence to promote a political position.
Regards,
Bob

Could someone please tell me why the National Aeronautical and Space Administration ( I do not see anywhere in their title; the word “Climate”) is discussing climate change?
What next the physicists at CERN mapping the surface of Mars?

NASA is run by people who are a disgrace and corrupt. NASA will ignore the above letter because spineless, incompetent, politically correct fools are in charge. Until real scientists do real science at NASA the place will remain a bad joke. The 1st step NASA has to take to restore its credibility is fire Hansen.

Steven Kopits says: – “Hansen has completely taken over the branding of NASA, and he has politicized the agency.”

We can’t entirely blame Hansen for what NASA has become. For years now (if not decades), NASA has been on a downward spiral. The only thing NASA has done recently that has saved their bacon was the super successful Mars Rovers.
NASA is extincting itself and looking to be replaced by a new agency; minus the politics and bureaucrats.

Thanks to the many heroes and veterans of JSC who penned and signed this letter to our illustrious NASA administrator Mr. Bolden.

NASA is suffering a serious delinquency of scientific virtue and is in need of significant course correction. The vast majority of folks I worked with while at JSC did not support the non-sense that Mr Abdalati and his politicized version of junk-science that Mr. Bolden also is endorsing by standing idly by while this rubbish is carried on.

It will be a happy day when these political hacks are no longer running NASA. And for the fans of the “In God we trust, all others bring data.” motto, it was on the wall through the final flight of the Shuttle program in the room I worked in. It clearly has no meaning to Mr. Abdalati nor Mr. Bolden unless it agrees with their agenda or can be massaged to do so.

ElBobbo says – “NASA’s primary mission was to make Muslims’ feel good about themselves?”

Apparently NASA, with its deep involvement in Anthropological Global Warming (and making some feel good); NASA has lost sight of its Vision statement: (from – What Does NASA Do? 02.01.10):

NASA’s vision: To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.
To do that, thousands of people have been working around the world — and off of it — for 50 years, trying to answer some basic questions. What’s out there in space? How do we get there? What will we find? What can we learn there, or learn just by trying to get there, that will make life better here on Earth?

So much for reaching “new heights” and “What’s out there in space”.
Perhaps a new vision: Too costly go where Neanderthals have stride before.

@michaeljmcfadden. Great post! Yes, in a state of relative economic and technological success, we have become complacent.
Most don’t understand the serious hurt that could fall upon us. So the environmentalists and affluent effete libs go chasing after the fairy tale of global warming, insisting on draconion measures, like the mandated 83% CO2 cuts by 2050 that -passed- in the U.S. House in 2009. That would have reduced per capita usage to 1867 levels. 1867. The Democrat cap & trade bill would have thrust a wrecking ball into civilization, no question. But O’s war on energy proceeds, and his criminal plan which would cause the price of electricity to skyrocket would also severely stunt electrical power generation. At jnova a comment by wes george puts this in perspective:

Imagine the total civil breakdown that would ensue if the electric grid failed for an extended period in Sydney or London…It’s worth noting that if a major city lost all electric supply in 1950, it wouldn’t have been catastrophic… Then ask yourself — why do we tolerate those in our polity who are working to weaken our already over-extended energy generating and delivery systems?

I have from the beginning been very skeptical of that alleged NASA response (by Abdalati). The only source to that ‘response’ is the (obscure) spaceref.com link by Bill Tuttle above, and it is nowhere an official statement or even a complete and properly presented response. Just snippets, phrases, and purported citations. Without introduction, proper framing, or formal addressing of the issue.

It looks much more like a recounted phone conversation ‘on the fly’ to me. Further, there are obvious misleading facts presented by the spaceref link. However, it did stir some activity among the usual pro-AGW, sites which probably was the main motive.

I never did, and still don’t consider NASA to have issued any ‘formal response’.

What follows this? The letter is great and certainly needed (needs?) to be sent, but what follows when this advice is again ignored? I hope these NASA heroes have a plan of action, they need to be heard worldwide.

I could never understand how NASA scientists could follow, or indeed lead, the Global Warming crowd. Now I understand. Well done gentlemen. Sometime in the future you will be seen to have been right and I hope I live to see the day.

phil c~ you know, if you actually took the time to read at the various skeptical blogs, you would not only know what was going on, you would know where to look to find out more. You might find it edifying to actually READ and THINK about what we are saying, rather than take your side’s word for it.

“NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate. As an agency, NASA does not draw conclusions and issue ‘claims’ about research findings. We support open scientific inquiry and discussion.

“Our Earth science programs provide many unique space-based observations and research capabilities to the scientific community to inform investigations into climate change, and many NASA scientists are actively involved in these investigations, bringing their expertise to bear on the interpretation of this information. We encourage our scientists to subject these results and interpretations to scrutiny by the scientific community through the peer-review process. After these studies have met the appropriate standards of scientific peer-review, we strongly encourage scientists to communicate these results to the public. ”

. It seems that the astronauts have no expertise in climate science, yet they want to impose their views on what the climate science says on NASA. The chief appropriately says, that he is not going to impose their views on NASA. He is going to quote what the peer reviewed science says.
If the astronauts don’t like what the conclusions of the research, since they are retired and free to do what they want, maybe should do some research and get it published.

michaeljmcfadden says: May 22, 2012 at 10:29 am
Jump 50 years into the future, to just 37 years ago, and half as many cars in the US were causing double the pollution (or more… haven’t really researched the figures on that),
———————————————————-
Automobile emissions have dropped far more than a factor of four. Per this reference: http://www.platinummetalsreview.com/pdf/pmr-v45-i2-050-059.pdf
unburned hydrocarbons are down from 10.6 in 1960 to 0.125 in 2001.
carbon monoxide is down from 84 in 1960 to 3.4 in 2001, and
nitrogen oxides collectively down from 4.1 in 1960 to 0.2 in 2001.

All expressedin a wonderful government unit, grams/mile. It’s time to thank the EPA for a job well done and “We don’t need ever tighter controls” so their budget can be cut 50%.

Wickeroy, my perception from a quote that I read a few years back was that the big agenda or prize was, which agency out of NASA and NOAA , would get the big fat ongoing Government contracts to fix what now appears to be an unlikely problem, by running a Geoengineering project worth Trillions in tax gravy to either Agency. The article claimed that Hansen argued with Gavin Schmidt over the spoils and he won the day.

Seems they were a bit premature in thinking they had won the prize before they had truly secured a monopoly on their version of climate science. Maybe someone has a link to that article or quote to remind us verbatim. Kind of makes sense, as there were overtures to do things like spread black soot on snow and dumping waste in the oceans.

Kind of sends shivers up the spine, but that is a whole new agenda of extremes, and hopefully avoided with thanks to the insider who released the CRU emails and helped expose the scheming team for what it was.

hen says — amazing about those signatories, not one climate scientist! Do any of these people study climatology?

Not really that amazing, since those signatories are professional scientists. Climatology with its consensus belief basis vs. professional scientific method is more akin to Astrology. {Apologies to Astrologists…}

Interesting that today Bolden announced that starting with today’s launch, the International Space Station would be supplied by private sector space vehicles freeing NASA time up to concentrate on other projects like going to asteroids (I thought that was going to go private too ….) and to Mars. No mention of earth bound projects like “climate” or anything else. Guess the Dems are turning it all over to the “Private Sector”. Wait …. wait…. isn’t that a Republican slogan? Hmmm. Maybe they are planning to transfer Hansen and his group to the “Private Sector” ?????

hen says:
May 22, 2012 at 4:51 pm
amazing about those signatories, not one climate scientist! Do any of these people study climatology?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hen – do you have a son named “Chicken Little”?? Sorry mods, delete if you wish, I just couldn’t resist.

Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
The science is not settled.
The truth is not being told to the public.
Top scientific organizations (eg NASA) are being complicit in broadcasting propaganda and are being caught out!

NASA was producing excellent, leading edge, climate research exemplified by John Herman and Richard Goldberg’s 1978 publication “Sun, Weather and Climate.” I understand among other things NASA had concerns about changes in the depth of the atmosphere as it affected the frictional effect on orbiting spacecraft. I understand Skylab came down because they miscalculated. There was also growing concern they would be blamed for climate change because of the gases they were injecting in to the troposphere, but more so with those in the stratosphere.

Things changed in 1981 when Hansen was appointed Director of GISS but he came to centre stage in 1988 when he was handpicked by Al Gore and Timothy Wirth to push the global warming hypothesis. Wirth had said,
“What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.”

In a 2007 PBS Frontline documentary Wirth said,
“We knew there was this scientist at NASA, you know, who had really identified the human impact before anybody else had done so and was very certain about it. So we called him up and asked him if he would testify.”

I worked at NASA for 11 years. Space Shuttle, Space Station, various advanced projects, all canceled. The biggest problem we had was money. Most space programs require stable multi-year budgets. But every year they have to grovel at the feet of an administration and various congresscritters for what ever scraps of cash they can get. They cannot count on a stable budget from year to year. Frequently the admin changes, priorities change and frequently the holder of the pursestrings changes. And even when they manage to plan long range, the project gets designed by political committees, not engineers. The Space Station does virtually nothing we wanted it to do and very little of value.

In this environment, you do what makes the politicians happy. And that means promote AGW. When that changes, Hansen will be out faster than you can say, what was up with that?

just came off a train from San Jose to Sacramento. The UP tracks in the SF area follow the bay induced tidal action. The tracks have been there for over a century. There is no tidal encroachment concern. Their tracks are literally 3 feet above the water line and have been so for a century.

What’s the problem?? If sea level rise were a problem, don’t you think the railroads would have raised it by now???

The melt occurred over 7000 years ago. Sea level rose over 350 feet. Get over it AGW proponents, It happened 7000 years ago. Where are you?????

Incidentally, for those that know the northern CA coast will appreciate that 10,000 years ago the California coast extended past the Farralonnes or at least 20 miles off shore. There was no SF Bay. See the computer monitor at the Lawrence Hall of Science (lower level) if you have questions about this point.

All of the recent adherents to to the Michael Mann CAGW would benefit by looking at AGU paleoclimatic papers. The AGU did a good job in this department, until its board drank the AGW cool aid. Now it is worthless as a scientific paper. Apparently, its been lost to the concensus.

What a loss to scientific credibility. I have not renewed my membership.

I never would have guessed that misson creep from their goal of space exploration would end up with them preoccupied with climate change. I love NASA but it may be time to completely pull the plug on them. To bad that government agencies are only born but never die. That needs to change soon.

Policy Guy says:
May 22, 2012 at 8:51 pm
What’s the problem?? If sea level rise were a problem, don’t you think the railroads would have raised it by now???
==========
Exact same situation with British Admiralty naval charts. 200-300 year old charts show the tidal range exactly the same as it is today.

If sea levels are changing, it is minor and it is cyclical. Human lifespans are too short to notice. Like insects than only live a few hours, we have seen the tide coming in and believe it will flood the world. Unaware that our ancestors saw the tide going out and believed the oceans were drying up.

10 thousand years ago the oceans rose at the end on the ice ages. The civilization of Atlantis was lost to memory. 5 thousand years ago the Black Sea basin flooded and the story of Noah grew from a farmer that saved his family and livestock by taking refuge in a boat. This was real flooding.

Today we are talking about what, maybe 1/8 of an inch a year. Maybe. Probably a lot less based on the Tasman mark and the BA charts. And this is only a global average which is meaningless for the most part, because the ground itself is not static and the ocean basins are themselves porous.

The liquid water we see in the oceans is only the tip of the iceberg as compared to the water in the mantle and below, where it supplies the hydrogen necessary to turn carbon rich rocks (limestone) into natural gas.

Clay Marley says:
May 22, 2012 at 7:51 pm
In this environment, you do what makes the politicians happy. And that means promote AGW. When that changes, Hansen will be out faster than you can say, what was up with that?
========
Tex was a family friend. Grew up on the border and spoke fluent Spanish. Election time he could always be counted on to hire a crew, rent a bunch of trucks, buy a lot of beer and bring in the Mexican vote. Rest of the time he could be found in a comfy chair with his feet up. Made a good living at it.

Günther Kirschbaum says:
May 22, 2012 at 10:07 am
“If you’d want this analogy to work, the team responsible of the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander would have to describe the exact location of the landing spot, with type of terrain, slope, amount of
protruding rocks, etc.
_______________
To quote the Foo… “One of these things is not like the other”.
You are employing a false analogy. Your logic fails on this point.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“If the average sea level rise since satellite measurements continues until the end of the century, there will be a SLR of at least 32 cm.”
_______________
Sea level has been increasing at nearly the same rate for millenia.
Do you not know this?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Certain things cannot be excluded, and that’s what it’s about: risk.”
________________
A meteorite may crash through your house tomorrow. Are you going to build a deep underground bunker?
Certain things can be excluded.
Error bands are useful tools.

In the days of Apollo, those working on all aspects of the mission would have had to back up any results produced with all the data used and the methods used in order that someone else could check the results. That is how you make true progress. The risks weren’t known precisely (Neil Armstrong famously stated that he thought the chances of Apollo 11 being successful were about 50:50) but what was known was how the results were obtained making them the best answer available. Now, contrast that approach with the ‘please believe us but we won’t show you our data or explain our methods’ approach of the climate crooks. Why isn’t it obvious to everyone what is going on here?

A few years ago I fulfilled an ambition by walking the length of the last remaining Saturn V. I still remember my joy following Apollo 8 ‘round the Moon for Christmas’ and following each of the subsequent lunar landings. To see the ‘real thing’ with my own eyes brought me back to that joy.

In my opinion, the Apollo project was humankind’s second greatest achievement (eradication of smallpox being the greatest). We owe NASA and its people for that.

And I was shocked when – on the day I saw the Saturn V – I saw the lack of care for the Memorial to those who died during the projects to get to the Moon and subsequent ‘space projects’. I could not understand how the American people, and especially NASA, would lack that care. But having read your post I think I now do understand it.

The decline of NASA which you describe gives me great sadness. Thankyou for explaining how it has happened.

I just hope whoever receives it, reads it! A similar thing was done to the IPCC & the UN, they just simply ignored it, that is the calibre of person who heads up these orgaisations. It doesn’t say what they want to hear, so they ignore it!

Until someone who has actual control of funds changes his mind, nothing exists.

You’re still operating on the assumption that moral suasion will have an effect. It won’t, because you’re not dealing with moral people. You’re dealing with lunatic inbred cretinous aristocrats who have a MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE-al sense instead of a moral sense.

PM Harper in Canada is showing us what works. He’s actually shutting off the money to all Green nonsense.

Back in the day, NASA had a profound sense of duty to extend and expand mankinds’ range both in a terrestrial and ex-planetary sphere, call it altruistic and ambitious and oh yes in competition with the ‘others’ but the scientists were mathematicians, phyicists and astronomers of ‘salt’, repute and of strident rigour, there was no other way, sometimes you had to ‘think on your feet’ and if you didn’t have the background and necessary knowledge – you were found out pretty quickly.

Then came the politics of funding and advocacy and it all went pear shaped when the big dollars went towards research into a supposition named: man made global warming and everybody piled in and suddenly ‘science’ was all about ‘statistics, computer modelling and divination’.

I think you have hit the nail on the head when you say,’the scientists were mathematicians, phyicists and astronomers of ‘salt’, repute and of strident rigour, there was no other way, sometimes you had to ‘think on your feet’ and if you didn’t have the background and necessary knowledge – you were found out pretty quickly.’ It is only when the politicians and media are prepared to accept, and publicise, that the the cAGW team has been ‘found out’ that progress will be made.

Discourse beats Silence says:
May 22, 2012 at 9:49 am
“This letter should end the discussion, as a protracted discourse on this topic is not in NASA’s interest.”

? ? ? ? ?

So from now on, the new NASA policy is that “protracted discourse” of difficult scientific questions — that have major, enduring, global-scale implications — “is not in NASA’s interest”?

Thank goodness these know-nothing advocates are not making science policy for NASA.

That’s not what they are saying at all, and you know it. They are saying that the second letter they have sent needs to be an end to the matter of NASA making vague statements about unproven science with large error ranges that are not based on hard evidence and facts.

It is NOT in NASA’s interest to carry on making statements such as this, nor to prolong a debate as to whether they should even be doing so in the first place, as the singatories quite rightly point out.

This is completely Off Topic so cut it if you want.
ferd berple says:
May 23, 2012 at 12:02 am
I agree with what you say for most of your post. However this statement has always made me think something doesn’t add up

5 thousand years ago the Black Sea basin flooded and the story of Noah grew from a farmer that saved his family and livestock by taking refuge in a boat. This was real flooding.

As I understand it the Black Sea has
1. a net out flow of water of about 300 cubic Km per year.
2. There is only one out flow – through the Bosphorus , which allows an inflow of salty water from the Mediterranean making the Black Sea salty, and layered with less salty water at the surface.
3. The depth of the Bosphorus varies but is about 40 metres at the shallowest.

So if we assume that the Don, Dneiper, Dniester and Danube have always flowed to a greater or lesser degree then due to points 1 and 2 there would, except in periods of exceptional dryness, water in the Black Sea basin would be to a level no less than about 40 metres (3 above) below the current sea level. Even if the global sea level was less than today there would be a cataract out of the Black Sea into the Mediterranean basin, thereby maintaining the depth.

During the Iceage if one assumes lower precipitation and therefore the possibility of a Dead/Caspian Sea scenario, the cooler temperatures lead to lower evaporation and to the probability of there still being a Black Sea outflow.

Now when the ice melted and retreated and sea levels rose there would also be an increased flow into the Black Sea also, so assuming there was water already in the basin I cannot see anything but a slow rise in level as the outflow through the Bosphorus increased to balance the in flow, as now.

So major changes in climate (Younger Dryas) may well have seen changes in the level and salinity of the Black Sea I cannot imagine the scenario of a rapid flood, as per the biblical story.

1 meter?….does that moron know how much water that is…..and where is that supposed to come from?

Greenland, for starters. If the entire Greenland ice sheet was to melt, that would produce a sea level rise of about 7m/23ft. It is not inconceivable that if we keep burning fossil fuels at the present rate, that we could melt 1/7 of the Greenland ice sheet (or more) by the end of this century.

If the average sea level rise since satellite measurements continues until the end of the century, there will be a SLR of at least 32 cm. This would be more than problematic for coasts all around the world. But 0.5/1/2 m cannot be excluded either, and that would definitely be much more costly.

I highlighted the only valuable point in your statement.

Likewise, IF it doesn’t continue to rise then it will rise less than 32cm.

Once you start pushing the “IF”s as actionable items you have left science in favor of advocacy.

Cmon guys lets be realistic. These astronaut guys are “the right stuff”. They sit at the top a bomb made of several hundred tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and say “no worries”. Someone gets hysterical and claims that cold o-rings leak and they say “no worries”.

If these guys say “no worries” I am going to bet its extremely dangerous.

If these letter signers disagree with the estimated sea level rise, perhaps they should do their own work, publish and then their views on sea level rise would also be included in the discussion, possibly reducing the uncertainty which they criticize.

If the entire Greenland ice sheet was to melt, that would produce a sea level rise of about 7m/23ft. It is not inconceivable that if we keep burning fossil fuels at the present rate, that we could melt 1/7 of the Greenland ice sheet (or more) by the end of this century.

No!
Ignoring the ludicrous suggestion “that we could melt 1/7 of the Greenland ice sheet (or more) by the end of this century”, the melt water would need to leave the land for it to add to sea level.

But the Greenland ice sheet is in a natural bowl. If 1/7 of it were to melt then it would stay entrained in the bowl and not add to sea level.

If this letter’s “end the discussion” guidelines had been adopted, then James Hansen’s 1981 article “Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide” would never have been published. Which we now appreciate, would have been a disastrously bad policy for science, for NASA, and for America.

Because that 1981 Hansen article has led to a “protracted discourse” of 608 subsequent citations (and counting), that includes data from pretty much every kind of spacecraft that NASA orbits.

The results of *that* kind of protracted scientific discourse have been, and will continue to be, immensely valuable. So why seek to suppress it? The letter offers no good reasons.

What we need is precisely what James Hansen and his fellow scientists are advocating: more data, better data, and new kinds of data, from a new generation of earth-observing NASA satellites.

Because this is the fastest surest path — the *ONLY* path — to find out, for sure, whether Hansen’s predictions are right or wrong.

sceptical says:
May 23, 2012 at 7:36 am
If these letter signers disagree with the estimated sea level rise
=======
You missed the point.

I found this the most telling statement in the letter:
“If hard data points to a provable rise, it should be stated with its probability.”

As simple as that. Scientific data is being presented in an unscientific fashion. What they are objecting to is politics disguised as science, which has and will tarnish the reputations of scientists worldwide, because it reduces them to the servants of politicians. If you can’t trust politicians to tell the truth, how can you trust their servants to be less dishonest?

What we are seeing is politicians giving scientists money for research that will generate votes for the politicians, rather than research that will benefit the population. Thus scientists are forced towards science for political reasons if they want to get funding.

NASA’s space program, and most certainly the moon program generated much of the technology we see around us today. At the height of its success the program was cancelled and the funds siphoned off to do climate research using NASA’s facilities.

Given what was accomplished in less than 10 years, While the US was fighting a war in Vietnam, had the program been allowed to continue, 40 years on there is every reason to expect the US would today have bases on the Moon and Mars. Instead, given US debt levels and trends, there is every reason to suspect that the US will never return a manned mission to the moon much less colonize Mars.

.2 meters to 2 meters. Oh, my aching. . . something. I can just see NASA administrators thinking how good it would be for their reputations and the agency funding to have something really big and relevant about the home planet in their portfolio like Hansen’s work. Unfortunately, it’s going to end up inflicting a gaping wound on their credibility as scientists.

garymount says:
May 23, 2012 at 2:52 am
“Dave Worley says: May 22, 2012 at 5:29 pm
We need a base on the moon. A real one, not a virtual one.
— — —
If China sets up a base on the moon, would that fulfill your requirements?”

A fan of *MORE* discourse says – “What we need is precisely what James Hansen and his fellow scientists are advocating: more data, better data, and new kinds of data, from a new generation of earth-observing NASA satellites.”

Are you willing to pay for the extra cost of those next gen Earth Observing NA$A Toy$? The extra cost over what NA$A is supposed to be doing.
I am not! I am already paying the Taxes for our Family and the Taxes of two other Families.

PS: Unless you are paying at least $7,500 per year in Federal Taxes; then you ain’t paying your share. And if you are not, then you should not have a say in the spending of the extra Taxes collected from those of us who are.

LazyTeenager says:
Cmon guys lets be realistic. These astronaut guys are “the right stuff”. They sit at the top a bomb made of several hundred tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and say “no worries”. Someone gets Mhysterical and claims that cold o-rings leak and they say “no worries”.

If these guys say “no worries” I am going to bet its extremely dangerous.
———————————————————————

Buddy, this has to be the lamest thing I’ve ever read in my entire life. Surely you can do better.
Is it really the thrust of your argument to say that these people can’t be relied on because they have the courage, dedication, and integrity to risk their lives on their certainty of the science and engineering behind that bomb they ride?
Maybe climate scientists ought to take a page out of their book and show us what they’re made of for a change. I’m sick of Michael Manns and Peter Gleick. When did the plague of lice start? How come we haven’t disinfected yet?
Puhleeze.

Cmon guys lets be realistic. These astronaut guys are “the right stuff”. They sit at the top a bomb made of several hundred tons of liquid hydrogen and oxygen and say “no worries”. Someone gets hysterical and claims that cold o-rings leak and they say “no worries”.

If these guys say “no worries” I am going to bet its extremely dangerous.

I will (politely) remind you that it was the consensus-seeking NASA Administrators (NOT the astronauts nor NASA engineers!) who were under POLITICAL pressure to get that (politically-consensus-popular) teacher into space for the political-popular-consensus exposure and government-funding for NASA from other consensus-seeking politicians.

The most responsible engineers trying to delay the launch until temperatures warmed up WERE overridden in their concerns by “your” consensus-hungry” NASA administrators and company managers. Astronauts – the early astronauts were all test pilots and most also war-proven “aces” who faced real-world combat – are more fully capable of recognizing stress, risk, and rewards than you. Their lives depend on it. And notice that their opponents (who had to face those same stressed and threats under the same conditions) died in that same combat at a greater than 5:1 ratio. Today, almost all astronauts have Masters in Engineering, Science, or medicine; and many have post-doc experience as PhD’s, plus flight time and lab time and research time: Thus they are more qualified in their fields and in science in general than any so-called “climate science moralist” lapping up his government-funded money studying (preaching!) his religion of CAGW.

And, by the way, the “solutions” to your precious consensus-rewarding CAGW theory are guaranteed to destroy billions of people’s lives and murder millions of innocents through poverty, disease, and hunger … based solely on the “possible chance” of perhaps causing limited harm to who? Nobody.

Every one supposedly threatened by the 10 to 20 cm of sea level rise can be saved at almost no cost. If they live that long – if they are not killed by the CAGW “solutions” of disease, cold, hunger, poverty, despair and death you prefer.

Neither discourse produces results, only more arguments. Hence one might as well be smart about it and not waste money just to have a so called informed argument that still results in nothing.
Unfortunately for Taxpayers, proponents of AGW want to have very expensive informed, yet pointless and needless arguments. (In effect) proponents of AGW want billions in funding to argue their faux belief that the Earth is flat.
Summary: Proponents of AGW don’t want to be smart about it.

sceptical says:
May 23, 2012 at 7:36 am
If these letter signers disagree with the estimated sea level rise, perhaps they should do their own work, publish and then their views on sea level rise would also be included in the discussion, possibly reducing the uncertainty which they criticize.

Hahahahahaha!! You are a genuine joke sceptical. Write a paper, get reviewed, publish and then it will… What? Be cited in a couple of decades as accurate science unlike the CAGW rubbish? Or immediately slimed as deniers as soon as the false scientists or troll reviwers falsely attack it? Why would these nobel scientists want to undergo the falsehoods immediately or have their names cleared in the future? They’ve said their piece, and by the way, it ain’t about the sea level! It’s about taking an advocacy stand on poor science or weak information.

These scientists have already proved themselves! PERIOD! Squirmy slimey muck raking weasels aren’t good enough to question their actions without serious proof. Remember? Incredible claims requires incredible proof? Something that CAGW alarmists seem to universally refuse to provide is serious proof? Oh, they’re good at serious claims, just not any followup; well, outside of notifying the media before publishing.

Back to “…estimated sea level rise…”; to what purpose does anybody have anything definitive to say about this? Every supposedly alarming estimate of future sea level rise is predicated on some fools model and then tacked onto the actual sea level rise. When challenged, the actual sea level rise is postulated into the future and given as the minimum rise. Well, yeah; duh!

Of course it is the minimum sea level rise and we all accept it! The sea has been rising since the last glacial advances stopped, the only question is how much?. When sea level STOPS rising, then mankind has a genuine problem looming. A problem whose history we’ve deciphered from sediments and archeology. It ain’t a pretty picture for mankind, not unless you are an unusually hairy short limbed/fingered person with an extra fatcell layer under your epidermis.

At May 23, 2012 at 5:42 am you express interest in the Biblical Flood.

As you say, the matter is off-topic, so I am only giving you this brief response so you can do a web search to find out more. Thus, you get a response which shows you have not been ignored here but the thread is not disrupted by a religious debate that would contravene the blog rules.

Many cultures contain ‘flood’ stories because great floods have often happened. And in the past ‘the world’ of a tribe was the geographical extent of that tribe.

The story of Noah is a variant of part of the Babylonian saga of Gilgamesh. It was probably acquired by the Israelites during their first exile. The Scribes collated it as part of the Old Testament cannon because it was a cultural myth which provides an assurance of God’s future care for the World. (Biblical myths are stories which tell a ‘truth’ but are not always historically or physically true; e.g. the Bible says a guy from Bethlehem – not David – killed Goliath but the Bible also includes the myth of David vs Goliath ).

Floods, droughts, heat waves and cold periods have always occurred. Relating any cultural myth to any specific historical event is usually a ‘fool’s errand’.

hen says:
May 22, 2012 at 4:51 pm
amazing about those signatories, not one climate scientist! Do any of these people study climatology?
===============================================================
High school education is sufficient to debunk the global warming swindle.

NASA isn’t NASA anymore – it’s a tool of the AGWScienceFiction department. I’ll post the link here where I found that NASA was no longer teaching the direct heat from the Sun reaches the Earth’s surface, now it teaches that shortwave light heats land and oceans, impossible physics – when before it used to teach correctly that it was the invisible thermal infrared, direct from the Sun which we actually experience as heat and which actually heats us up, and the land and oceans.

I’m really saddened that a whole generation has been indoctrinated with this fake fisics, that they no longer know the difference between light and heat and think the atmosphere around is empty space. This fictional world of the KT97 “Greenhouse Effect” energy budget is deliberately designed to sell the idea of carbon dioxide heating the Earth, it is full of nonsense made up fisics, it is missing the water cycle to create the sleight of hand that greenhouse gases warm the Earth.

Think deserts, in the real world it’s the Water Cycle which brings down temps, from around c67°C to the 15°C – the ‘greenhouse gas warming of 33°C’ claim of AGW is a sleight of hand which figure they get from the temp of the Earth with no atmosphere at all, -18°C to 15°C with atmosphere; water is the main ‘greenhouse gas’, it cools the Earth.

Do you know who came up with the ludicrous notion that oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide are ideal gases in this cartoon? [Without weight, volume and attraction – and so not subject to gravity and therefore ‘spontaneously diffusing into the atmosphere to mix thoroughly travelling at great speeds through empty space bouncing off other hard dot imaginary molecules’, and so carbon dioxide, which in the real world is heavier than air, ‘accumulating for hundreds and even thousands of years’ in this fictional empty space atmosphere so thoroughly mixed it can’t be separated out without work.]

None of those who belief this is real physics could ever have got a rocket onto the moon..

I think you confirm my thoughts, but I have seen the flooding of the Black Sea via the Med. put forward as a serious proposition, which doesn’t add up for me. The oldest known towns are about 10000 years old, meaning that people were sophisticated enough to record (even if initially orally) stories of the ending of the ice age and proper global warming. So these stories will be based in actual events, the problem occurs when we try to apply them to our pet theories.

Sun TV Canada with Ezra Levant has been showing a 1 hour piece on the Heartland conference. Two of the Nasa Astronauts were interviewed by Ezra along with a few other Global warming realists. Good piece of work by Sun TV.

RACookPE1978 says
I will (politely) remind you that it was the consensus-seeking NASA Administrators (NOT the astronauts nor NASA engineers!)
———–
Well looking at these guys qualifications and not knowing NASA’s organizational structure I would suspect these guys are the administrators you are throwing mud at.

Many commentators are missing the point.
The NASA letter writers are achievers. They had a task to do and they delivered the goods. It can be confirmed that they delivered the goods.
This is a rather different exercise to that faced by a theorist who can hypothesise without solution, or without adequate solution. That is a far easier task. If your efforts are remembered in 100 years you are dead, so you have less care in delivering the goods.
In the mineral exploration and mining world that I inhabited, the equations were simple. If you did not continue to deliver the goods you were out on the street looking for a new occupation, for there was no money to pay you. If you incorporated data into resource estimates like that famous Russian tree, you were also in trouble because you should have known about the nugget effect from literature going back 50 years. If you failed to record and archive data for keeping by the government, as was required, you were also out on the street.
The argument is not about whether training in certain professions or the gaining of certain degrees makes one competent to comment on climate matters.
The argument is that non-achievers should treasure advice from those who delivered the goods and try to learn better personal standards.

The argument is not about whether training in certain professions or the gaining of certain degrees makes one competent to comment on climate matters.
The argument is that non-achievers should treasure advice from those who delivered the goods and try to learn better personal standards.

Geoff Sherrington says:
May 23, 2012 at 9:31 pm
“Many commentators are missing the point.
The NASA letter writers are achievers. They had a task to do and they delivered the goods. It can be confirmed that they delivered the goods.
This is a rather different exercise to that faced by a theorist who can hypothesise without solution, or without adequate solution. That is a far easier task. If your efforts are remembered in 100 years you are dead, so you have less care in delivering the goods.
In the mineral exploration and mining world that I inhabited, the equations were simple. If you did not continue to deliver the goods you were out on the street looking for a new occupation, for there was no money to pay you. If you incorporated data into resource estimates like that famous Russian tree, you were also in trouble because you should have known about the nugget effect from literature going back 50 years. If you failed to record and archive data for keeping by the government, as was required, you were also out on the street.
The argument is not about whether training in certain professions or the gaining of certain degrees makes one competent to comment on climate matters.
The argument is that non-achievers should treasure advice from those who delivered the goods and try to learn better personal standards.”

Achievers versus non achievers is not the correct way to look at this.
The real point is that there is a cultural gap here between the mind set required for successful space flight, and the study of a chaotic science like climate science. The level of precision possible is very different. It is unrealistic to demand the same level of precision and certainty from climate science research as one does for the analysis of the trajectory of a space vehicle.

That is the reason the astronaut’s letter is off base. There is also a bit of hubris involved.

Achievers versus non achievers is not the correct way to look at this.
The real point is that there is a cultural gap here between the mind set required for successful space flight, and the study of a chaotic science like climate science.

At last you have said something I agree!

A scientific mind set is required to achieve a successful space flight.
But
A pseudoscientific mind set is required to participate in so-called ‘climate science’.

Eric Adler says:
May 24, 2012 at 6:07 am
The real point is that there is a cultural gap here between the mind set required for successful space flight, and the study of a chaotic science like climate science. The level of precision possible is very different. It is unrealistic to demand the same level of precision and certainty from climate science research as one does for the analysis of the trajectory of a space vehicle.

Then why do “climate scientists” claim they can, indeed, measure something fifty years in the future to that level of precision using only computer models?

That is the reason the astronaut’s letter is off base. There is also a bit of hubris involved.

The astronauts hit a bases-loaded homer. And the hubris involved resides in the chair behind Waleed Abdalati’s desk.

REPLY: I agree, and Adler is only here too poo poo anything anyone says, his arguments are mostly merit-less rantings of a person who has no ability to see beyond news headlines. He seems to have no other purpose. Given his history, I have long suspected he is a paid shill of some group, but he of course denies such charges. – Anthony

Anthony Watts posts I have long suspected [Eric Adler] is a paid shill of some group, but he of course denies such charges

Obviously, people accused of being paid shills always deny it … whether they are paid shills or not. And that is why unsupported “shill!” accusations are fruitless.

Much better is to evaluate works strictly on mathematical and/or scientific and/or engineering merit … because failing this test is highly specific in diagnosing shillerly and/or ideology and/or incompetence.

By this diagnostic criterion, Eric Adler stands “innocent”, on the grounds that NASA has a long and distinguished history of studying chaotic dynamical systems from a mathematical point-of-view (stability of systems of dynamical equations), from a scientific point-of-view (dynamical stability of the solar system), and from an engineering point-of-view (combustion instability-versus-instability).

There is therefore no basis to assert that planetary heat balance (for example) is a subject outside of NASA’s purview.

Therefore, based strictly upon this objective criterion, Eric Adler’s analysis is more nearly correct than the (former) NASA signatories.

REPLY: Speaking of shills, I note your IP address is associated with several names that have posted here. Changing screen names around is a policy violation. – Anthony

Do they really thing that we cannot keep ahead of a 1 m sea level rise in 100 years? 1 centimeter a year is nothing.

Especially for a coral island. Any sea level changes are unlikely to make much difference in the case of cliffs being eroded by wave action (especially a change several orders of magnitude less than that produced by tides.)
Sea level change appear to be very much a local thing. There are places where sea level is rising (or the land is sinking); there are places where sea level is falling (or the land is rising) and there are places where there has been no apparent change at all.
I wonder if there are any harbors built of stone or concrete which have been in use for several hundred years.

You made a silly comment. I pointed out how silly it is. You have responded with an irrelevance.

You were wrong. I will not bother to debate anything else you say about your error. Live with it.

Only in your strange worldview is what I have said an ‘error’. I was responding to Latitude, who incredulously wondered where 1m of water could come from. 87 years is a very short period of time in geologic terms, but a very long time considering the way we are abusing the ecosphere.

We are causing temperatures to rise, more dramatically in the arctic than elsewhere. As a result, Greenland ice melts, and some of that meltwater finds its way to the sea. As a result, Greenland glaciers calve into the sea, at a faster rate than they would if temperatures were stable.

“We are causing temperatures to rise, more dramatically in the arctic than elsewhere. As a result, Greenland ice melts, and some of that meltwater finds its way to the sea. As a result, Greenland glaciers calve into the sea, at a faster rate than they would if temperatures were stable.

Thankyou. I trust that you noticed metzomagic has not addressed his error of fact which I pointed out; viz.Greenland ice sheets are in a natural bowl so in the implausible scenario that 1/7 of them were to melt then that water would remain in the bowl capped by the remaining ice.

Instead, as you point out, he/she/it/they adds further implausible hypotheses. This is typical ‘warmist’ troll behaviour. Therefore, when I noticed the refusal to address the point of fact I had presented (i.e. the existence of the ‘bowl’) I knew what would come if I were to engage in further discussion. So, I bluntly stated that I would not engage in further discussion.

But the cascade of additional implausible hypotheses started although I had refused to engage.

I thank you for pointing out that the implausible hypotheses are twaddle.

New UK Met Office global temperature data confirms that the world has not warmed in the past 15 years.

Analysis by the GWPF of the newly released HadCRUT4 global temperature database shows that there has been no global warming in the past 15 years – a timescale that challenges current models of global warming.”

These engineers and career military officers are entitled to their opinion, but the VAST MAJORITY of climate scientists, the experts in the field, believe we have a real problem on our hands. Ask the folks who live in Norfolk, VA. I’m an engineer, a Metrologist, but that does not qualify me to issue anything more than a casual opinion on the subject. BTW, there is a big difference between a geologist and a “paleoclimatologist”, as this blog’s author claims for himself. Or is the published curriculum vitae incorrect?? This website would not be so suspect if it were not funded by the oil and coal industry…

Dr. William Wilkinson says: May 24, 2012 at 7:21 pm
So, an engineer is of the opinion that engineers have nothing to contribute to this discussion. Fascinating. Because you are ignorant, does not mean that others are. You start off with two fallacies: the appeal to authority (…the VAST MAJORITY of climate scientists…) and an implied ad hominem (…engineers and career military officers…) … and you obviously have a reading disability: please show us where Anthony Watts, the “blog’s author” has ever claimed to be a “paleoclimatologist”. Oh…. and where is your evidence that this blog is funded by the oil and coal industry?

What you may have missed is that ALL of the NASA retirees are scientists. What they told us at the conference is that they have a very strong retirees network that holds monthly meetings and that a significant sub-group has gotten interested in climate and has invited both skeptic and consensus scientists to give them briefings. Both have accepted. Guess which they have found more persuasive?

If you think you have an argument which will change their minds, they will be more than happy to listen to you… Uhhhh.. they may require you to do it in person. If you want to do it, ask a moderator to forward your e-mail address to them.

metzomagic says:
May 24, 2012 at 2:28 pm
We are causing temperatures to rise, more dramatically in the arctic than elsewhere. As a result, Greenland ice melts, and some of that meltwater finds its way to the sea. As a result, Greenland glaciers calve into the sea, at a faster rate than they would if temperatures were stable.

Dr. William Wilkinson says:
May 24, 2012 at 7:21 pm
These engineers and career military officers are entitled to their opinion, but the VAST MAJORITY of climate scientists, the experts in the field, believe we have a real problem on our hands. Ask the folks who live in Norfolk, VA.

I know several people who live in Norfolk. They are of the opinion that you’re blowing smoke.

I’m an engineer, a Metrologist, but that does not qualify me to issue anything more than a casual opinion on the subject…. This website would not be so suspect if it were not funded by the oil and coal industry…

Your casual opinion on WUWT’s funding, much as your casual opinion of the scientists who signed the letter, seems based on the usual warmie propaganda rather than on any empirical observation. Are you sure you’re an engineer?

A fan of *MORE* discourse says:
May 24, 2012 at 11:39 am
By this diagnostic criterion, Eric Adler stands “innocent”, on the grounds that NASA has a long and distinguished history of studying chaotic dynamical systems from a mathematical point-of-view (stability of systems of dynamical equations), from a scientific point-of-view (dynamical stability of the solar system), and from an engineering point-of-view (combustion instability-versus-instability).

Here’s the flaw in your argument — Adler wasn’t trying to make that case. In fact, he said just the opposite: “The real point is that there is a cultural gap here between the mind set required for successful space flight, and the study of a chaotic science like climate science. The level of precision possible is very different.”